dehumanize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to regard, represent, or treat (a person or group) as less than human.
Society still has a tendency to devalue and dehumanize those with disabilities and to suppress their voices.
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to deprive of human qualities or attributes; divest of individuality.
Conformity dehumanized him.
verb
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to deprive of human qualities
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to render mechanical, artificial, or routine
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dehumanize
Explanation
To dehumanize someone is to make them either feel or appear somehow less than human. Laboring under terrible conditions can dehumanize workers, making them feel more like robots than people. War can dehumanize people in a few different ways. Violent or seemingly endless fighting might dehumanize soldiers, causing them to stop feeling normal human emotions. War propaganda might dehumanize the enemy, making people more willing to fight against and kill them. At the heart of dehumanize is human, and its Latin root humanus, which means both "human" and "humane, kind, or civilized."
Vocabulary lists containing dehumanize
March: Book One
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You Call This Democracy?
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
No thoughts and prayers, even, just a rush to dehumanize the dead with labels such as “domestic terrorist” before any investigation.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 1, 2026
“We need to support artists, not dehumanize them.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 6, 2025
Social media has a way of exacerbating preexisting social tensions and divisions, making it easier to dehumanize the other side and engage in a kind of verbal warfare.
From Slate • Sep. 12, 2025
That inspired Juson to juxtapose the humanity of Black people against the words that sought to dehumanize them.
From Salon • Sep. 30, 2024
Treating differences as a threat enables one society to dehumanize the other.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
